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Subject: Re: WCCC Hardware Uniformity

Author: Mike Byrne

Date: 18:13:56 07/07/04

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On July 07, 2004 at 19:27:11, Bryan Cabalo wrote:

>Why doesn't everyone run their competitive chess programs with the same hardware
>so that no single chess engine has a hardware advantage?

Since the first chess tournamnet, the hardware has always been different.  Have
you ever been in  soapbox derby - samething, the particpants gets to put it
altogether anyway he chooses.  I think that makes it very interesting.

You are thinking of a Uniform Platform contest, which they used to have every
year.  People lost interest.


>
>It seems unfair to me that some competitors have access to faster and better
>hardware.  I would think of it as a science experiment where the only variable
>is the chess engine itself and _not_ the hardware that its running on.  That is
>the real test.  I want to see the real winner of this event competing on equal
>hardware playing grounds.  I think this would help with hardware uniformity in
>future WCCC events.  There has to be something in the rules about playing with
>equal hardware.  Maybe after this year the WCCC could supply the use of one
>computer for each participant, or even quad opterons for each participant!!

Race cars, saliboats,  bicycles - do they used the exact same hardware - of
course not.  Same thing here.  I'm 100% against making the WCCC a uniform
hardware event.  There could be a place for  uniform hardware event as a
side/separate tournament if there is enought interest.


>
>After all, we are just testing which chess search program is better, right?

Actually - no.  It's really a team effort, hardware, software and operator.
It's for fun and bragging rights and maybe a few trophies.

We let SSDF test the software and tell us chess search program  is best ;>)



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